July 17, 2006

Have I told you how Mrs. Repressed is a woman in demand? (And yes, by people other than myself!)

See, she's got this brain. It's quite a nice brain, really smart, see, and it's got a lot of information inside of it that people want and need on a fairly regular basis. However, now that the company for which we work has consolidated itself down to a point where the customers that we deal with are - at a minimum - 2 hours away, some as far as 9 hours, road trips have become a common occurance for her. And she's getting ready for a really busy couple of months, a veritable round-the-zone Training World Tour de Force, if you will.

And it starts tomorrow.

We've gotten used to her "work trips". She's got the packing thing all down, and the kids and I have a pretty good routine that we settle into when Mommy's not home for a night or three. There's almost always a sojourn to Old McDonalds - and always the one with the Playland (TM), otherwise I'd have a 4-foot mutiny on my hands. There's usually a night of "pick your own dinner" adventure game; for the Punkin, usually "cheese tacos" (aka. quesadillas), and for the Sweetpea, it is invariably macaroni and cheese - never the good kind, just the cheap Kraft M&C, although the Fairly Oddparents is an acceptable departure from the regular macaroni noodles.

On most weeks, there will usually be a trip to the recently-renovated Happy Hollow Park. And I'm sure that my favorite proprietor of the Bossa Nova BBQ can attest to how scary that park and Columbian Park used to be, what with its rickety and rusty old spiral slides that we used to fly down at breakneck speeds as kids. (*Psst!* Hey, Friend Linger - did I tell you that those very slides are now roped off and marked as "antiques"? How freakin' old does that make you feel, hmm...?) But to the city's credit, they've really done a wonderful job of fixing up da joints, making the parks a damn nice place to which you can take the chitlins and have 'em burn off a few thousand calories. Still, with the temps expected to top out at around 92-93 F and 218% stupidity (yeah, it's just like a Turkish bath without all the nice naked men), I just don't see that happening this week, color me crazy.

When Mommy's away, that usually means one round of each of the following: bath night, with all the songs, colored bath fizzies and crazy hairdos; house cleaning, where everybody has their job and they both want to help with the Runaway Rep-tar (aka. the Hoover Upright) while dancing to "I Like To Move It Move It" from Madagascar; and, if they behave, a trip to the Silver Dipper to see our friend Dave The Ice Cream Man, for a Triple Gooberberry Sunrise (aka. a kid's scoop in a sugar cone).

So, all in all, we try to have a fun time while Mommy's out of town. But it's never the same as having her home. I know that our little monkeys hate it when she's gone - playing Stomp the Gorilla Monster's Head with Daddy starts to lose its lustre after a couple of nights, and it's just not the same having me tuck everybody in for bed without a few Mommy Kisses to send them off properly. I know I miss her dearly - it's strange not to have someone to talk to about adult stuff at the end of the day; it's strange to sleep alone after becoming so accustomed to having that reassuring prescence always there at arm's length; it's strange to only hear her voice and not be able to see her, smell her perfume or give her a hug when we both need it.

And I know that she's not a big fan. For one thing, while I'm sure you've heard the old syllogism about there truly is nothing like sleeping in one's own bed, she really means it. We dropped a fair amount of coin for our current bed, and I can say without hestitation that it is by far the most comfortable mattress upon which my wide carcass has ever had the pleasure of settling. Hotel beds never quite seem to match up, and they always seem to have a weird tilt or spring gone askance. So, when we're comparing it against the UltraMegaSleep Mattress 3000, those differences really get amplified by another order of magnitude, and when Mrs. Repressed doesn't get her sleep (which she hasn't for about the past 5 years), she gets a bit... cranky.

Needless to say, by the end of the week, the three of us are practically counting down the seconds until we hear the garage door opening and then the opening of the back door before we all go flying towards her the microsecond she crosses the threshold. So, the next couple of months are going to be pretty rough... but we'll just find a way to deal with it. We always do.

And while this may not have been one of my eloquent posts, I just wanted to let people know how proud I am of Mrs. Repressed and how much I love 'er, silly git that she is for marryin' the likes of me...!

July 15, 2006

Yeah, that's what we're doing today (or, if you asked my wife, she would tell you without skipping a beat that it's not a role for me, it's a lifestyle!).

My mother procured some tickets to the Peru City Circus (Circus Capitol of the World, to hear them tell it... and I'm thinking that it isn't because of the performers under the big top!), so Your Faithfully Repressed Author will be out for a greater part of today.

You couldn't ask for more, really. After a quick glance at today's forecast, what could be more perfect than a 90 F + day with about 115% humidity, surrounded by clowns, large sweaty animals, a huge amount of crap and more clowns?

Come to think of it, most weekdays are like that. Hmmm.....

Anyway, I've got serious issues with clowns. Serious issues. Can't-stand-to-be-in-the-room-with-'em kind of issues. (And, to an only slightly lesser extent, sock monkeys and bridges, but we'll revisit this topic later.) I have no choice but to confront my clownaphobia right upclose and personal today. Maybe I'll even get some good pics to show you all later, if'n you behave yourself...

Then again, if you don't see a post from me in a day or two, send all flowers, well-wishes and Thorazine to the Home Hospital Loony Bin. I've been told that I drool a lot, so bibs are also welcome.

July 09, 2006

I had really, really planned on cranking out some serious blogging today. Then along came an unseasonably pretty Indiana July day and the exhortations of our children for a trip to the Zoo. The Indianapolis Zoo, to be specific, for which we have had season tickets - given to us as Christmas gifts by Laura's sister Barbara and her husband (and my best friend, hearkening all the way back to our college days) Mark. It was one of those gifts that seemed like a cute novelty the first time we got them, but have turned into a welcome and annual event.

The Punkin (our son) and The Sweetpea (our daughter) love it. Their personal favorites are the Big Dut-Dut House - the aquarium and water sciences building, the name acquired from one of our earliest toddler linguistics: the unmistakable John Williams bass line from the movie Jaws, which Alex took a strange shine to while still in diapers (dut-DUT...dut-DUT...dut-Dut-dut-Dut-dut-DUT-DUT-dut-DUT...You're gonna need a bigger boat!), the Dolphin building and the Zoo Train, which takes an oddly unimpressive trip around a short span of the African Plains exhibit... then around the back of all the administrative shacks before passing by a tiny sliver of area where you might be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of some elephant's ass in it's concrete paddock before returning to the station. But, as you'll learn, if it has to do with trains, the kids have nothing but love for it. And the train is a one of the constant must-sees while visiting the Zoo.

Of course, the other reason that the kids relish the visits are the playgrounds: apparently, the Zoo folk realized that the kids must've been lacking enough entertainment to keep them occupied for any extended period of time - a condition that would potentially lead to them not having a good enough time to want to come back, which would lead to decreased attendance and season tickets sales - so they refurbished the little play area into one of those "modern" playgrounds, complete with a recycled rubber ground covering and risk-free bouncy springs and slides (although we did catch The Punkin climbing up the outside of the tube slide the last time we stopped in, sneaky little monkey that he is!).

Oh, and they have a nice little snack bar that still serves Noble Romans pizza. Our Noble Romans here in Lafayette - for whom yours truly used to be a dedicated delivery driver ten years ago - finally suffered a massive contraction in response to years of lackadaisical management at all levels in the company and improperly monitored growth outwards from Indianapolis. To this day, you'll only find a few stores in Indy - very likely franchise stores that survived the company's trip down the toilet - and the oddly-placed "gas-station specials"; that is, miniature pizza shops nestled away in various gas-station/convenience marts, a mere shadow of a pizza chain that had potential (Ya coulda bin a contenda!) but didn't take care of its own health enough to make it alongside the big boys. But, boy-howdy, nobody had better sauce or breadsticks... hell, I could drink their sauce like a beverage, it was so yummers...

*sigh* But enough of the gastronomical nostalgia, right?

Apparently we weren't the only ones who had the bright idea to head off to the near West side for an afternoon of merriment. Cruising along Washington St, you will pass along the south side of the Zoo's parking lot... which was parked as far as the eye could see. Even The Boy whistled and noted, "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all!" But as is often the case, once you actually find a parking spot and get inside, it rarely seems as crowded. I will say this - the Zoo is spread out enough to keep crowds from being too much of a problem.

Even the new meerkat exhibit - for which the Desert building had been closed for some time - had no wait time. We hadn't had a chance to see this much-publicized new addition... and once we got inside, we found out that, well... it... it ain't all that. Hell, the whole meerkat exhibit could fit inside our living room and still have time for some humping turtles -a truly encouraging display we happened upon by complete accident today: a couple of hardshells makin' with the love, all slow and sweet-like. Once I figure out how to get the 1.2 million fucking pictures from my phone to my computer, you'd better believe that I'll be posting some great turtle porn!

And that really stuck with me, because it's not the first time I've been massively underwhelmed by the Zoo's "new" exhibits, including the clever-but-much-too-dark-to-actually-see-anything underwater dolphin dome. It just seems like they have this knack for coming in just...a...little under your expectations. The tigers are visible... but only a little. They have a bald eagle... but you can never actually find it. And I'm sure that there have to be some actual fish in the Indiana stream visit, but I'll be damned if I've ever seen more than the one lonely minnow I seem to find everytime. It's like a Zoo In Training - not quite up there with the big boys, still learning the ropes, still trying to figure things out... but dammit, guys, you've been around for decades. How much more time do you need?

But then I look into the enraptured faces of my children when they come across Nemo and Dorie swimming together in their own separate tank... and I'm reminded that sometimes, just enough is more than plenty.